Measuring household vulnerability to climate change—Why markets matter

Climate change and climate variability affect households in developing countries both directly through their impact on crop yields and indirectly through their impact on wages, food prices and the livelihoods of the poor. Therefore, vulnerable household groups cannot be identified without considering their position in and access to markets. I illustrate the effects – transmitted through markets – that are significant in household exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to climate change by simulating productivity shocks to maize up to 2030 due to climate change in a computable general equilibrium model of Malawi. The results show that rural households with large land holdings may benefit from the adverse impact of climate change on maize yields as a result of increased maize prices. Urban poor and small-scale farmers are vulnerable to climate change due to the large portion of their incomes spent on food. Existing vulnerability measures that do not consider equilibrium effects and characterise all farmers as vulnerable may therefore be misleading.     

Climate change and the transgenic adaptation strategy: Smallholder livelihoods,climate justice,and maize landraces in Mexico

Climate change will affect agricultural production by subsistence farms in crop centers of origin, where landraces are conserved in situ. Various strategies for adaptation to climate change have been proposed. In this paper we examine the prospects of what we call the ‘transgenic adaptation strategy’, i.e. the appeal to use transgenic seeds to adapt to climate change, through the lens of smallholder maize farming in Mexico. Landraces are the bedrock of maize production in Mexico. We consider how maize farmers may respond to climate change and the effects of those responses on crop diversity. In this paper, we argue that the promotion of the transgenic adaptation strategy is problematic for biological and social reasons. Smallholder livelihoods in southern Mexico could suffer a disproportionate negative impact if transgenic technology is privileged as a response to climate change. Agroecological and evolutionary approaches to addressing the effects of climate change on smallholder agriculture provides an alternative adaptive strategy.     

Trends,drivers and impacts of changes in swidden cultivation in tropical forest-agriculture frontiers: A global assessment

This meta-analysis of land-cover transformations of the past 10–15 years in tropical forest-agriculture frontiers world-wide shows that swidden agriculture decreases in landscapes with access to local, national and international markets that encourage cattle production and cash cropping, including biofuels. Conservation policies and practices also accelerate changes in swidden by restricting forest clearing and encouraging commercial agriculture. However, swidden remains important in many frontier areas where farmers have unequal or insecure access to investment and market opportunities, or where multi-functionality of land uses has been preserved as a strategy to adapt to current ecological, economic and political circumstances. In some areas swidden remains important simply because intensification is not a viable choice, for example when population densities and/or food market demands are low. The transformation of swidden landscapes into more intensive land uses has generally increased household incomes, but has also led to negative effects on the social and human capital of local communities to varying degrees. From an environmental perspective, the transition from swidden to other land uses often contributes to permanent deforestation, loss of biodiversity, increased weed pressure, declines in soil fertility, and accelerated soil erosion. Our prognosis is that, despite the global trend towards land use intensification, in many areas swidden will remain part of rural landscapes as the safety component of diversified systems, particularly in response to risks and uncertainties associated with more intensive land use systems.     

Does smallholder maize intensification reduce deforestation? Evidence from Zambia

Increasing food production to meet growing demand while reducing tropical deforestation is a critical sustainability challenge. This is especially true in sub-Saharan Africa, which faces serious food insecurity issues and where smallholder farming is the main driver of forest conversion. Competing theories imply opposite predictions as to whether deforestation increases or decreases with smallholder agricultural intensification, which can improve food security by increasing crop yields per area cultivated. This research provides new empirical evidence on the association between deforestation and smallholders’ use of modern inputs, in particular inorganic fertilizer on maize and improved maize seeds, using Zambia as a case study. We analyze this association nationwide in a spatially disaggregated manner at the lowest administrative level using machine learning-based small area estimation, which makes use of detailed nationally representative surveys on smallholder farm households for 2011 and 2014, and census data to statistically predict modern inputs use country-wide for 2011, when average maize yields were 1.28 tons/ha. Then, we evaluate the association between improved maize seed and fertilizer inputs and subsequent deforestation, while controlling for key geospatial covariates. The results support the land-sparing hypothesis, finding that smallholder farmers’ use of improved maize seed is negatively associated with deforestation on non-acidic (pH ≥ 5.5) soils, an effect that is enhanced by complementary inorganic fertilizer use. Fertilizer use on its own, however, is weakly associated with increased deforestation. Sustainable intensification via use of improved seeds on adequately fertile soils and improving soil health appears compatible with reducing both deforestation and food insecurity.     

Exploring future changes in smallholder farming systems by linking socio-economic scenarios with regional and household models

We explore how smallholder agricultural systems in the Kenyan highlands might intensify and/or diversify in the future under a range of socio-economic scenarios. Data from approximately 3000 households were analyzed and farming systems characterized. Plausible socio-economic scenarios of how Kenya might evolve, and their potential impacts on the agricultural sector, were developed with a range of stakeholders. We study how different types of farming systems might increase or diminish in importance under different scenarios using a land-use model sensitive to prices, opportunity cost of land and labour, and other variables. We then use a household model to determine the types of enterprises in which different types of households might engage under different socio-economic conditions. Trajectories of intensification, diversification, and stagnation for different farming systems are identified. Diversification with cash crops is found to be a key intensification strategy as farm size decreases and labour costs increase. Dairy expansion, while important for some trajectories, is mostly viable when land available is not a constraint, mainly due to the need for planting fodders at the expense of cropland areas. We discuss the results in relation to induced innovation theories of intensification. We outline how the methodology employed could be used for integrating global and regional change assessments with local-level studies on farming options, adaptation to global change, and upscaling of social, environmental and economic impacts of agricultural development investments and interventions.     

The importance of local forest benefits: Economic valuation of Non-Timber Forest Products in the Eastern Arc Mountains in Tanzania

Understanding the spatial distribution of the quantity and economic value of Non-Timber Forest Product (NTFP) collection gives insight into the benefits that local communities obtain from forests, and can inform decisions about the selection of forested areas that are eligible for conservation and enforcement of regulations. In this paper we estimate transferable household production functions of NTFP extraction in the Eastern Arc Mountains (EAM) in Tanzania, based on information from seven multi-site datasets related to the behaviour of over 2000 households. The study shows that the total benefit flow of charcoal, firewood, poles and thatch from the EAM to the local population has an estimated value of USD 42 million per year, and provides an important source of additional income for local communities, especially the poorest, who mainly depend on subsistence agriculture. The resulting map of economic values shows that benefits vary highly across space with population density, infrastructure and resource availability. We argue that if further restrictions on forest access to promote conservation are considered, this will require additional policies to prevent a consequent increase in poverty, and an enforced trade-off between conservation and energy supply to rural and urban households.     

Smallholder adaptation to climate change: dynamics and limits in Northern Ghana

Climate change and land degradation result in decreasing yields and crop failures in Northern Ghana and have caused further impoverishment of Ghana’s poorest region. Farmers have diversified their livelihoods to adapt to uncertain environmental conditions in various ways. While traditionally a diversification of the production and migration were the prime means of adaptation, many farmers have started to intensify their production by adopting shallow groundwater irrigation for vegetable gardening for Ghana’s urban markets. This has helped to cope with a changing environment, ameliorated poverty and reversed rural–urban migration, while the local hydrology curbed an over-exploitation of groundwater resources, commonly associated with an uncontrolled farmer-driven expansion of groundwater irrigation. This research confirms that farmer-driven small-scale irrigation can play an important role in the process of climate change adaptation. However, while farmers tried to integrate in the larger economy, they have become subject to market failures that in their essence are caused by unfair and unpredictable patterns of global trade. It is this double exposure to global environmental change and economic globalization that need to be taken into consideration when local adaptive capacities are discussed. Many convincing arguments call for the revision of some of the most unfair and devastating economic practices; however, the need to enhance adaptive capacity towards global climate change for poor parts of the population in the south should be added to the discussion.     

Stability and change within indigenous land use in the Ecuadorian Amazon

In the Amazon basin and other tropical forest regions, many forested landscapes are inhabited by indigenous peoples who are increasingly exposed to infrastructure expansion, large-scale natural resource extraction, and development programs. How indigenous land use evolves in this context will be a critical determinant of the future of these forests. To date, few studies have had access to longitudinal, large-sample and field-based data that enables the measurement of indigenous land use change and its correlates in these contexts. To address this lacuna, we make use of a unique multi-ethnic household survey conducted in 32 indigenous communities of the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon in 2001 and again with the same households in 2012. We analyze these data to measure land use and land use change as well as their determinants. This reveals that the overall household agropastoral footprint has remained close to constant over time, but with important changes within particular land uses and ethnicities. Notably, cacao has largely replaced coffee (tracking commodity price changes), and Kichwa and Shuar households have intensified production on increasingly subdivided plots, with the Shuar specializing in cattle. In contrast, Waorani and Cofán households have maintained small footprints, while Secoya households largely abandoned cattle ranching. Taken together, the results emphasize ethnic heterogeneity in indigenous land use change, a pattern which is only visible through the use of a longitudinal, large-sample, field-based design.     

Explaining the ‘hungry farmer paradox’: Smallholders and fair trade cooperatives navigate seasonality and change in Nicaragua's corn and coffee markets

Latin American smallholder coffee farmers linked with fair trade and organic markets are frequently cited as models for sustainable food systems. Yet many experience seasonal hunger, which is a very common, but understudied, form of food insecurity. Northern Nicaragua's highlands include well-organized cooperatives, high rural poverty rates, and rain dependent farms, offering a compelling study area to understand what factors are associated with seasonal hunger. This participatory mixed methods study combines data from observations, interviews and focus groups with results from a survey of 244 cooperative members. It finds that seasonal hunger is influenced by multiple factors, including: (1) annual cycles of precipitation and rising maize prices during the lean months; (2) inter annual droughts and periodic storms; and (3) the long-term inability of coffee harvests and prices to provide sufficient income. Sampled households experienced an average of about 3 months of seasonal hunger in 2009. A series of five least squares regression models find the expected significant impacts of corn harvest quantity, farm area, improved grain storage, and household incomes, all inversely correlated with lean months. Unanticipated results include the finding that households with more fruit trees reported fewer lean months, while the predominant environmentally friendly farming practices had no discernable impacts. The presence of hunger among producers challenges sustainable coffee marketing claims. We describe one example of a partnership-based response that integrates agroecological farm management with the use of fair trade cooperative institutions to re-localize the corn distribution system. Increased investments and integrated strategies will be needed to reduce threats to food security, livelihoods, and biodiversity associated with the rapid spread of coffee leaf rust and falling commodity prices.     

The carbon cost of agricultural production in the global land rush

Increases in the number of large-scale land transactions (LSLTs), commonly known as ‘land grabbing’ or ‘global land rush,’ have occurred throughout the lower- and middle-income world over the past two decades. Despite substantial and continuing concerns about the negative socio-environmental impacts of LSLTs, trade-off analysis on boosting crop yield and minimizing climate-related effects remains limited. Our study makes use of a global dataset on LSLTs for agricultural production to estimate potential carbon emissions based on different scenarios of land cover change and fertilizer use, as well as potential value of agricultural production on transacted land. We show that, if fully implemented on ∼ 38 M ha of transacted land, 2.51 GtC will be emitted during land conversion, with another 24.2 MtC/year emitted from fertilizer use, assuming farming technology of investors’ origin is adopted on transacted land. Comparison of different combinations of forest protection policies and agricultural intensification levels reveals that enforcing strict deforestation regulation while promoting fertilizer use rate improves the carbon efficiency of agricultural production. Additionally, positive spillovers of investors’ farming technology on existing arable lands of host countries can potentially double their crop yield. Our analyses thus suggest that fostering agricultural intensification and technology spillovers under strict regulation on land allocation to investors to protect forests would allow for boosting agricultural yield while minimizing carbon emissions.     

Droughts and famines: The underlying factors and the causal links among agro-pastoral households in semi-arid Makueni district, Kenya

Famines are often linked to drought in semi-arid areas of Sub-Saharan Africa where not only pastoralists, but also increasingly agro-pastoralists are affected. This study addresses the interplay between drought and famine in the rural semi-arid areas of Makueni district, Kenya, by examining whether, and how crop production conditions and agro-pastoral strategies predispose smallholder households to drought-triggered food insecurity. If this hypothesis holds, then approaches to deal with drought and famine have to target factors causing household food insecurity during non-drought periods. Data from a longitudinal survey of 127 households, interviews, workshops, and daily rainfall records (1961–2003) were analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods. This integrated approach confirms the above hypothesis and reveals that factors other than rainfall, like asset and labour constraints, inadequate policy enforcement, as well as the poverty-driven inability to adopt risk-averse production systems play a key role. When linking these factors to the high rainfall variability, farmer-relevant definitions and forecasts of drought have to be applied.     

Rural-urban connectivity and agricultural land management across the Global South

Research on how urbanization affects rural agriculture has typically focused on loss of farmland due to urban expansion. However, more distal pathways that could link urbanization to rural agriculture, including enhanced connectivity through rural-urban migration and market access, remain poorly understood. Here, we assess whether greater rural-urban connectivity is associated with changes in agricultural land management across the Global South. Such associations are complex, and thus difficult to measure at this scale. We therefore take a two-step approach to investigate these relationships. First, using a multivariate clustering approach, we define a series of rural-urban connectivity typologies from existing spatial data on land use, demographics, rural market access, and rural population change (as a proxy for outmigration). We examine the variation in key agricultural outcome variables (mean cereal crop yields, % of attainable yields met, and cropping frequency) within the typologies, which shows that greater overall connectivity (market access and population change) is associated with higher cereal yields, yield attainment, and cropping frequency. Second, building on these clustering results, we develop hypotheses about the relationship between rural-urban connectivity and agricultural land use intensity. We then use propensity score matching to test these hypotheses by comparing locations with similar sociodemographic and land use characteristics. When controlling for gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, agricultural land, and population density, rural locations with relatively high market access, negative population change, and greater built-up area have significantly higher mean nitrogen application rates, irrigated areas, and cereal yields across the Global South. Results vary by region, but greater rural-urban connectivity and urban extents are generally associated with higher overall agricultural inputs and yields, particularly in Asia. However, we find little support for a relationship between connectivity and either % attainable yields met or field size. Our findings stress the need to better understand the mechanisms that link urbanization processes and agricultural management at different spatiotemporal scales.     

Trajectories of deforestation,coffee expansion and displacement of shifting cultivation in the Central Highlands of Vietnam

Production of commodities for global markets is an increasingly important factor of tropical deforestation, taking over smallholders subsistence farming. Measures to reduce deforestation and convert shifting cultivation systems towards permanent crops have recently been strengthened in several countries. But these changes have variable environmental and social impacts, including on ethnic minorities. In Vietnam, although a forest transition – i.e. shift from shrinking to expanding forest cover – occurred at the national scale, deforestation fronts and agricultural colonization for commodity crops – a.o. coffee – still dominated the Central Highlands plateaus. Previous studies suggested that the dominant land use changes in that region were on the one hand the acquisition and conversion of agricultural lands to perennial crops for external markets by capital-endowed Kinh households – the majority ethnic group in Vietnam – and on the other hand the corresponding displacement of poor households of ethnic minorities relying on shifting cultivation towards the forest margins. This study tested this hypothesis by using remote sensing to analyze land use and cover changes and deforestation trajectories in the coffee-growing area in Dak Lak and Dak Nong provinces over 2000–2010. Land use changes were linked with socioeconomic dynamics using secondary statistics and spatial modelling. Net deforestation reached ?0.31% y^?1 of the total area between 2000 and 2010. Deforestation was indeed mainly directly caused by shifting cultivation for annual crops, but this was partly driven indirectly by expansion of coffee and other perennial crops over agricultural lands. Displacement of shifting cultivation into the forest margins, pushed by market crops expansion, was the spatial manifestation of the marginalization of local ethnic minorities and poor migrants, pushed by capital-endowed migrants. This marginalization is a long-standing process rooted in the colonization and development strategy for the highlands followed since colonial times. Over the late 2000s, rapid deforestation was strongly reducing the benefits of national-scale forest recovery, and might shift the country back to net losses of natural forest. Implications for policies that may affect deforestation are discussed.     

Meeting future food demand with current agricultural resources

Meeting the food needs of the growing and increasingly affluent human population with the planet’s limited resources is a major challenge of our time. Seen as the preferred approach to global food security issues, ‘sustainable intensification’ is the enhancement of crop yields while minimizing environmental impacts and preserving the ability of future generations to use the land. It is still unclear to what extent sustainable intensification would allow humanity to meet its demand for food commodities. Here we use the footprints for water, nitrogen, carbon and land to quantitatively evaluate resource demands and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of future agriculture and investigate whether an increase in these environmental burdens of food production can be avoided under a variety of dietary scenarios. We calculate average footprints of the current diet and find that animal products account for 43–87% of an individual’s environmental burden – compared to 18% of caloric intake and 39% of protein intake. Interestingly, we find that projected improvements in production efficiency would be insufficient to meet future food demand without also increasing the total environmental burden of food production. Transitioning to less impactful diets would in many cases allow production efficiency to keep pace with growth in human demand while minimizing the food system’s environmental burden. This study provides a useful approach for evaluating the attainability of sustainable targets and for better integrating food security and environmental impacts.     

Limits to adaptation to interacting global change risks among smallholder rice farmers in Northwest Costa Rica

In this paper, we discuss the theoretical relationships among interacting global change risks, valued livelihood goals, and adaptation limits. We build from research on the impacts of multiple and interacting global change risks in lesser-developed countries and seek to understand household adaptation limits in agrarian communities. We ask: What are valued livelihood goals among smallholder farmers in Northwest Costa Rica? How do socio-economic determinants of adaptive capacities determine their ability to meet these goals in the face of the impacts of interacting global change risks? Our data were based on focus groups, interviews, survey responses from 94 smallholder farmers, government statistics, and published literature. We analyzed our data using qualitative content analysis and quantitative logistic regression models. Our analysis showed that farmers perceived rice production as an identity, and that they were being forced to consider limits to their abilities to adapt to maintain that identity. We found that farm size, cattle ownership, years spent farming, and household income variety were determinants of their abilities to remain in rice production while maintaining sufficient levels of livelihood security. We also showed that for those households most vulnerable to water scarcity, their ability to successfully adapt to meet valued livelihood goals is diminished because adaptation to water scarcity increases vulnerability to decreased rice-market access. In this way, they become trapped by the inability to reduce their vulnerability to risks of the interaction between global changes and therefore abandon valued identities and livelihoods.     

Farmers’ coping response to the low flows in the lower Yellow River: A case study of temporal dimensions of vulnerability

Water scarcity in northern China has been a topic of concern in China for many years, but the increased frequency and duration of “no-flow” events in the Yellow River in the 1990s created a flurry of recent activity in the academic and policy arenas. These low-flow events severely disrupted the supply of irrigation water for agriculture in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and posed a substantial threat to farmers’ livelihoods. Within a broader effort to assess farmers’ vulnerability to water shortages, this qualitative research focuses on the coping mechanisms and adaptive strategies adopted by farming households in three villages in Shandong Province (Ma, Ding, and Xing). With increasing water stress and other stresses from land degradation and lack of market access, farmers’ coping mechanisms have evolved, expanding from one-time adjustments to long-term adaptations, and switching focus from securing reliable water sources to improving irrigation efficiency and diversifying both on-farm and off-farm production. The three villages have different vulnerability profiles and adopted different patterns of adaptive processes that reveal the key roles played by community leaders and the early innovators. The research presented here contributes a temporal and dynamic dimension to the study of vulnerability which is largely missing from the current literature, and provides practical insights about how to improve farmers’ adaptive capacities in the face of water shortages in northern China.     

A bridge too far? The influence of socio-cultural values on the adaptation responses of smallholders to a devastating pest outbreak in cocoa

The influence of socio-cultural factors on the adaptive capacity, resilience and trade-offs in decision-making of households and communities is receiving growing scholarly attention. In many partly transformed societies, where the market economy is not well developed, livelihood practices are heavily structured by kinship and indigenous social and economic values. Farm investment decisions and incentives to produce agricultural commodities are shaped by a host of considerations in addition to market imperatives like profit. In one such partly transformed society in East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea, we examine the adaptation decisions of smallholders in response to the drastic drop of yield in their cocoa plots caused by the sudden outbreak of Cocoa Pod Borer. To explain why the impact of the pest has been so great we examine the interconnections between household responses, the local socio-cultural and economic context of smallholder commodity crop production and the wider institutional environment in which household choices and decisions are made. We argue that the significant lifestyle changes and labour intensive farming methods required for the effective control of Cocoa Pod Borer are incompatible with existing smallholder farming systems, values and livelihoods. To adopt a high input cropping system requires more than a technical fix and some training; it also requires abandoning a ‘way of life’ that provides status, identity and a moral order, and which is therefore highly resistant to change. The paper highlights the enduring influence and significance of local, culturally-specific beliefs and socio-economic values and their influence on how individuals and communities make adaptation decisions.     

Can agriculture support climate change adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation and rural livelihoods? insights from Kenya

Changes in the agriculture sector are essential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, meet growing food demands, and improve the livelihoods of poor smallholder producers. What agricultural strategies are needed to meet these challenges? To what extent are there synergies among these strategies? This paper examines these issues for smallholder producers in Kenya across several agroecological zones. Several practices emerge as triple wins, supporting climate adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation, and profitability goals. In particular, integrated soil fertility management and improved livestock feeding are shown to provide multiple benefits across all agroecological zones examined. Triple wins of other agricultural practices are limited to specific agroecological zones. Irrigation and soil and water conservation, for example, are essential for adaptation, mitigation, and profitability in arid areas. The results suggest that agricultural investments targeted toward these triple-win strategies will have the greatest payoff in terms of increased resilience of farm and pastoralist households and global climate change mitigation. To reap the benefits of triple-win strategies will require that policymakers, researchers, and practitioners move away from isolated approaches focused on either adaptation or mitigation or rural income generation toward a more holistic assessment of joint strategies as well as their tradeoffs and synergies.     

Multiple cropping systems of the world and the potential for increasing cropping intensity

Multiple cropping, defined as harvesting more than once a year, is a widespread land management strategy in tropical and subtropical agriculture. It is a way of intensifying agricultural production and diversifying the crop mix for economic and environmental benefits. Here we present the first global gridded data set of multiple cropping systems and quantify the physical area of more than 200 systems, the global multiple cropping area and the potential for increasing cropping intensity. We use national and sub-national data on monthly crop-specific growing areas around the year 2000 (1998–2002) for 26 crop groups, global cropland extent and crop harvested areas to identify sequential cropping systems of two or three crops with non-overlapping growing seasons. We find multiple cropping systems on 135 million hectares (12% of global cropland) with 85 million hectares in irrigated agriculture. 34%, 13% and 10% of the rice, wheat and maize area, respectively are under multiple cropping, demonstrating the importance of such cropping systems for cereal production. Harvesting currently single cropped areas a second time could increase global harvested areas by 87–395 million hectares, which is about 45% lower than previous estimates. Some scenarios of intensification indicate that it could be enough land to avoid expanding physical cropland into other land uses but attainable intensification will depend on the local context and the crop yields attainable in the second cycle and its related environmental costs.     

Demand for biodiversity protection and carbon storage as drivers of global land change scenarios

Many global land change scenarios are driven by demand for food, feed, fiber, and fuel. However, novel demands for other ecosystem services give rise to nexus issues and can lead to different land system changes. In this paper we explore the effects of including multiple different demands in land change scenarios. Our reference scenario is driven by demands for crop production, ruminant livestock production, and provisioning of built-up area. We then compare two alternative scenarios with additional demands for terrestrial carbon storage and biodiversity protection, respectively. These scenarios represent possible implementations of globally agreed policy targets. The simulated land system change scenarios are compared in terms of changes in cropland intensity and area, as well as tree and grassland area changes. We find that the carbon and biodiversity scenarios generally result in greater intensification and less expansion of cropland, with the biodiversity scenario showing a stronger intensification effect. However, the impact of setting the targets impacts different world regions in different ways. Overall, both scenarios result in a larger tree area compared to the reference scenario, while the carbon scenario also yields more grassland area. The land systems simulated while accounting for these additional demand types show strong patterns of specialization and spatial segregation in the provisioning of goods and services in different world regions. Our results indicate the relevance of including demands for multiple different goods and services in global land change assessments.